Freedom of Information Act 2000 Request

Request on how many investigations concerning to gymnast relating to sexual and physical abuse.

Request

1. How many investigations concerning gymnasts related to? (i) physical abuse (ii) sexual abuse (iii) verbal abuse (iv) all other abuse by British Gymnastics coaches or British Gymnastics staff have you received each year for the past 15 years?

2. How many of the investigations in question 1 led to charges? What were the charges?

3. How many of the charges in question 2 led to convictions? What were the convictions?

4. How many investigations concerning athletes other than gymnasts related to (i) physical abuse (ii) sexual abuse (iii) verbal abuse (iv) all other abuse by sports coaches have you received each year for the past 15 years? Please outline which sport the investigations pertain to.

5. How many of the investigations in question 4 led to charges? What were the charges?

6. How many of the charges in question 5 led to convictions? What were the convictions?

Response

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) prosecutes cases on behalf of the police and other investigative authorities, in England and Wales. Investigations are a matter for the police therefore the CPS will have no knowledge or data regarding any such proceedings. In order for the CPS to obtain the information you have requested, namely details of charges and convictions where the complainant was a gymnast or athlete and where the defendant was a British Gymnastics coach, British Gymnastics staff or a sports coach (and to identify the sport involved), a manual review of all current and finalised cases over the last fifteen years, would be required. It should however be noted that the CPS only hold case files relating to England and Wales and your request extends to British Gymnastics and athletes.

As a guide, in the most recent year 2019, the CPS made decisions to charge in respect of 153,868 suspects. During the same period 393,530 defendants were convicted.

Section 12(1) of the FOI Act means public authorities are not obliged to comply with a request for information if it estimates the cost of complying would exceed the appropriate limit. The appropriate limit for central government is set at £600. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3.5 working days determining whether the department holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting the information.

We believe that the cost of manually reviewing in excess of 153,868 individual case files would exceed the appropriate limit. Consequently, we are not obliged to comply with your request.

Under section 16 of the FOI Act we have an obligation to advise what, if any, information may assist you with your request. As the police hold details of investigations, you may wish to consider submitting your request to the police.

Information Management Unit 020 3357 0788 IMU@cps.gov.uk